Currently, identifying labels are used in a variety of arrangements to help identify particular objects. For example, tracking-type labels (e.g., bar codes) are often used by suppliers (e.g., wholesalers and retailers) to track the amount of inventory/usage of one or more objects.
Conversely, the purchasers of such objects rarely, if ever, have an opportunity to define the label requirements for accounting and/or tracking such objects. This is due in part to practical considerations in that most purchasers (e.g., consumers of household products) do not have a need for tracking the objects they purchase. However, some large end-users (e.g., government entities) may desire or otherwise even require that the objects they purchase be accounted for and tracked with identifying labels that meet their own specific needs. These purchasing entities may generally require a type of indicia not correlated with the indicia used by the object suppliers to track the objects. Therefore, object suppliers and object purchasers often have differing requirements with respect to the tracking labels used on the same object.
Moreover, the systems and methods employed by object suppliers and the systems and methods employed by object purchasers often differ. For example, object suppliers may use software and/or other tracking methods that are different than the software and/or tracking methods used by the third-party purchaser. Thus, it is currently very difficult to integrate both object supplier and object purchaser object label and/or system requirements without substantial expenditures by both parties.
It would be advantageous if a method and/or system existed that enabled object suppliers to generate labels that were compliant with the object purchaser's labeling standards without requiring the object supplier to integrate with the object purchaser's system and/or without requiring the object supplier to purchase proprietary third-party software and/or proprietary third-party printing means to create compliant identifying labels, and vice-versa.